Billionaire Leon Cooperman was on the verge of tears while speaking about his concern about “the lefties” and their progressive outlook on capitalism.
“I’ve lived the American dream. I’m trying to convince people like [Senators] Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders and AOC (Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez)—don’t move away from capitalism. Capitalism is the best system,” Cooperman said on CNBC’s Squawk Box on Friday while holding back tears. “I get choked up when I talk about it because basically, my father came to America at the age of 12 as a plumber’s apprentice. No education.”
“I went to public school in the Bronx, high school in the Bronx, college in the Bronx. I started my career in Wall Street the day after I got my MBA from Columbia. I had no money. I couldn’t afford a vacation. I made a lot of money. I’m giving it all back,” Cooperman said before co-anchor Rebecca Quick stepped in as he choked up.
“Giving it all back?” Give me a fucking break, asshole.
"…my father came to America at the age of 12 as a plumber’s apprentice. No education.”
“I went to public school in the Bronx, high school in the Bronx, college in the Bronx. I started my career in Wall Street the day after I got my MBA from Columbia. I had no money. I couldn’t afford a vacation. I made a lot of money. I’m giving it all back…
I’m imagining the cost of living that allowed his father to live on the salary of a 12 year old who worked as a plumbers assistant. I’m also imagining that this billionaire probably went to Bronx Science (a free public school now where attendees likely have paid for test prep to do well on the entrance exam, out of reach for a lot of NYC public school students). If he went to college in the Bronx, it was likely Fordham - the 2023 cost of attendance (tuition plus fees and books) is now $89,575. For an MBA from Columbia, their cost of attendance (which includes room and board) is now $127,058 in 2023.
He cannot make the connection that COL and earnings have grown exponentially since the time his father was 12, yet wages haven’t. Does he not see that very few students would be able to go to private universities for undergrad and grad schools and service their debt with current wages? How many graduate and immediately start working on Wall Street? He’s probably against WFH, too, solely seeing the benefit to his commercial real estate portfolio and ignoring the commuting costs and work life balance issues for the workers. The world capitalism gave him and his father is gone. At this point it’s as real as ghosts and dreams. We are dealing with the current world that capitalism has given us, a capitalism that only a billionaire would cry over.
hat COL and earnings have grown exponentially since the time his father was 12, yet wages haven’t. Does he not see that very few students would be able to go to private…
He sees and he knows. It is crocodile tears of a men that has a “fuck you i got mine” attitude.
No, he probably doesn’t know. It’s been decades since he had any real “economic anxiety”. His type of budgeting and belt tightening is renting out his yacht when he’s not using it, or staying at his current vacation homes instead of buying new ones.
He literally doesn’t know what the average person experiences, so we shouldn’t listen to him for advice.
If he gave it all back, why is he still a billionaire?
It’s a neat trick: You give your donations to a foundation where you also put your family members, and use that foundation to lobby for the stuff that you’re investing in.
That’s at least mostly what Gates is doing.
Are you talking about Bill Gates who’s given tens of Billions to eradicate mosquito borne Malaria, and has pledged to give away ALL of his money to charity upon his death, that Bill Gates?
Yes, please see the links below, however as a brief summary:
Bill and Melinda Gates foundation do two things: Invest in public issues and lobby governments to spend in said issues, in exchange for further donations and investments.
However, in parallel, Bill Gates also invests in specific companies that will be targeted as main providers for those activities.
One could consider that he’s investing in companies that help out (e.g., vaccination) and that’s not a bad thing. The problem is that he is bennefiting from lobbying in pro of the companies he has invested on.
We could also agree that even if he’s bullying governments and institutions into giving him more money through those companies, at the end it is a positive boost (like the example you mention).
That’s not the case with Common Core: Diane Ravitch put it better than I could here, but basically Bill Gates’ is forcing public schools into programs that do not work, alienate teachers and students, have almost bankrupt public education and required purchasing materials from companies he controlled.
Furthermore, for each time Common Core failed, he doubled down, and for each consecutive failure he decided that a new drastic measure will solve the issue, even though the education community was saying otherwise.
The issue with these foundations is that rich people believe they have the solution to all the problems: not money but their intellect, and that they know more than everyone combined on that profession.
This is in parallel what is been happening with carbon capture. This foundation is also lobbying for a technology that has been heavily critisized as a pipedream; however, surprise surprise, Bill Gates do have large investments in carbon capture companies (e.g. Heirloom).
Again, I do not think he’s evil or is going to inject me with pentium II mmx now; I just think he feels smarter than everyone else and is misguiding governments to invest in failed practices despite what the actual professionals are saying.
Videos:
https://youtu.be/U3Z9gBKuTIk (CNBC - How Common Core Broke U.S. Schools)
https://youtu.be/laGtd-b0vMY (FT - Carbon Capture: hopes, challenges and controversies)
https://youtu.be/ag5zQeXC-TY (THD - How Bill Gates Hijacked US Education Agenda (Opinion))
- nccs.urban.org/publication/nonprofit-sector-brief-2019#recipients
- statista.com/statistics/250878/number-of-foundations-in-the-united-states
- propublica.org/article/the-secret-irs-files-trove-of-never-before-seen-records-reveal-how-the-wealthiest-avoid-income-tax
- nytimes.com/2021/06/08/us/politics/income-taxes-bezos-musk-buffett.html
- irs.gov/charities-non-profits/private-foundations/taxes-on-failure-to-distribute-income-private-foundations
- nptrust.org/philanthropic-resources/charitable-giving-statistics
- issuelab.org/resources/36381/36381.pdf
- thenation.com/article/society/bill-gates-foundation-philanthropy
- latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2007-jan-07-na-gatesx07-story.html
- sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1166559/000110465923060842/0001104659-23-060842-index.html
- sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1663801/000089843223000302/0000898432-23-000302-index.html
- latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2012-may-18-la-ford-foundation-los-angeles-times-20120517-story.html
- archives.cjr.org/behind_the_news/ford_foundation_los_angeles_ti.php
- jacobin.com/2015/11/philanthropy-charity-banga-carnegie-gates-foundation-development
- washingtonpost.com/local/education/pearson-pays-77-million-in-common-core-settlement/2013/12/13/77515bba-6423-11e3-aa81-e1dab1360323_story.html
- sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1067983/000095012323005270/0000950123-23-005270-index.html
- philanthropynewsdigest.org/news/gates-foundation-awards-11-million-for-financial-inclusion-in-africa
- news.stanford.edu/2018/12/03/the-problems-with-philanthropy
- washingtonpost.com/education/2021/05/05/what-bill-melinda-gates-did-to-education
- chalkbeat.org/2018/6/21/21105193/the-gates-foundation-bet-big-on-teacher-evaluation-the-report-it-commissioned-explains-how-those-eff
- currentaffairs.org/2021/05/humanity-does-not-need-bill-gates
- prweb.com/releases/2014/02/prweb11601976.htm
- washingtonpost.com/education/2020/02/10/bill-melinda-gates-have-spent-billions-dollars-shape-education-policy-now-they-say-theyre-skeptical-billionaires-trying-do-just-that
- philanthropyroundtable.org/almanac/statistics-on-u-s-generosity/[28] charitywatch.org/nonprofit-compensation-packages-of-1-million-or-more
- nytimes.com/2013/07/27/opinion/the-charitable-industrial-complex.html
- latimes.com/business/la-na-gates8jan8-story.html
- policy-practice.oxfam.org/resources/carbon-billionaires-the-investment-emissions-of-the-worlds-richest-people-621446
- oxfam.org/en/research/time-care → PDF report
- oxfam.org/en/research/survival-richest → PDF report
"I’ve lived the American dream.
While creating more nightmarish conditions for others.
Congratulations, and fuck you.
If he was giving it all back, the story would start with words “former billionaire.”
I also don’t understand this constant probing of the people when it comes time to provide assistance. I pay my taxes, that’s my contribution to social programs. When there’s a natural disaster or issue don’t put a bunch of celebrities on TV asking for slightly less poor people to donate. I want the government to step in and help out. Billionaires should not exist unless everyone has a safe place to sleep at night and warm meals to eat during the day. Considering that’s not the case, that’s how you know capitalism isn’t the best system
capitalism is the best system
guy who made lots of money under capitalism expresses that capitalism is the best system
There are two groups of people who support capitalism as it exists today:
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The truly rich, the 1%, who exclusively got that way by exploiting the 99% as much as physically possible, and
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The portion of the 99% who’ve been brainwashed through various methods into thinking that they can become rich -or- that the rich will “watch out for them” or some equivalent fairytale
There are two groups of people:
Those that think there are two groups of people, and those that don’t.
The premise that socialism is better relies on the government not becoming corrupt. When it fails, it’s really bad.
Capitalism also functions great when the government isn’t corrupt … it gives consumers choice and fails much more softly.
If you look at examples of cooperatives, socialist utopia projects, etc… they break down much for the same reason capitalism has broken down for the majority of people in the US… The largest party is the party that doesn’t vote, and of those that vote half of them don’t know what they’re voting for, and of those that know what they’re voting for half of them are basing their votes on misinformation.
Managing society takes work from everybody in society. There’s no easy button that keeps the train on the tracks.
To be fair, you did qualify “as it exists today” and that makes a difference. However, the point is it’s not capitalism that failed us, in many ways it’s ourselves, our parents, and/or our grandparents not paying attention and elected the right people. Similarly those same people buy the cheapest thing in Walmart and don’t stop to ask themselves why it’s so cheap.
Union busting, the manufacturing exodus, etc, it all could’ve been stopped if people had just paid more attention. You’ll never get me to trust that by moving to socialism as an economic model people are suddenly going to pay more attention and not fuck it up.
I don’t think the US needs to go full socialist (mostly because I think it’s impossible and as you said, still corruptible), but we need to lean more towards socialism to start clawing our way back to having a middle class. If we could get affordable universal healthcare and affordable colleges, I would be beyond thrilled. Even though these are things that many, many other countries have had for a long time.
I think a universal basic income would also make a ton of sense, as we potentially enter the era of AI taking over a lot of our jobs. At some point, hopefully we become so efficient at “work” that we can use UBI to help people survive who want to do something outside the usual 9-5 (or who have been automated out of their job).
This is why every country with a better lifestyle than the US is not a fully communist one, but a capitalist one with some key socialist programs like universal healthcare, free college education, generous paid maternal leave, standard 5 weeks of holiday for all workers, etc. These should be considered basic necessities in any relatively wealthy country.
I think a universal basic income would also make a ton of sense, as we potentially enter the era of AI taking over a lot of our jobs. At some point, hopefully we become so efficient at “work” that we can use UBI to help people survive who want to do something outside the usual 9-5 (or who have been automated out of their job).
I don’t feel like debunking this crap, but you’re wrong and placing the blame on individuals.
